The Gladiators, Part IV

Posted on Sat 20th May, 2023 @ 3:33am by LUCY & Sorra Yarime (Yari) & S'lani

1,774 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Neither Yours Nor Mine
Location: Secret location of the Slaver's Guild
Timeline: MD 4, 0110

Previously, ...

"Okay, then I will see you on the other side." Yari began sneaking off, darting in and out, stopping and hiding around shuttles and even landing gear on the big ships until he got to the one shuttle he wanted. He got aboard without incident and began to power up the vessel. He believed that they had a good chance of slipping away during all the excitement and that they shouldn't be missed for quite some time.

And now the escape on Conundrum ....

S'lani chose a medium-sized shuttle that was well-maintained. They needed something that would get them safely back to the starbase, or wherever Yari wanted to go to leave the shuttle. Her goal was to keep them both alive. She made her way to the shuttle of her choice and deftly picked the lock, grateful it wasn't alarmed. Then she started it up and secured the hatch. She located her boss and got a transporter lock on him, then calculated the time it would take to get close enough to the door without looking like she was waiting for something to happen.

Yari quickly powered up the systems on his shuttle. "Okay, here we go," he said out loud as he engaged the thrusters. He caught the Security personnel off guard as his small ship lifted up off the hanger floor. The place was sanitary, so there was no debris flying around, only some of the nearby Security covering their eyes as they tried to keep from being blown to the ground from the force of the thrusters. Yari found his parking spot and set the shuttle down, disengaging the thrusters. He looked out and could see that it didn't take long for the Security Guards to recover and come his way.

Yari accessed the computer control and began to bypass the safeguards so that he could force a warp core breach. It wasn't an easy task, but it wasn't Yari's first rodeo. He heard beating on the door and was glad that he had decided to lock it. "You in there, come out now!"

Time was not on his side now. He had to get this done quickly. He disconnected the magnetic interlock which would cause a plasma leak and a warp core breach, but he needed something quick so he activated the warp drive. He disconnected it from the drive system but forced it to full power and then exceeded its limits. It would quickly overheat and have a power cascade without the coolant. The drive plasma was toxic and began to fill up the cabin. "Crap!" Yari exclaimed as he looked around for the toolbox or a place where an oxygen mask might be.

The Vulcan was monitoring Yari. As the air inside the shuttle grew more toxic, she transported him on board and activated the shields. "Did you complete your task, or should I fire on the shuttle?"

Yari grinned and held up three fingers. He counted down in seconds with those fingers. 3, 2, 1. Then he had a closed fist. He gave a slight look of confusion right before a loud explosion occurred, then he grinned again. "Okay, that should do it, I'll fly." He jumped into the seat and quickly checked everything before tapping a few commands. The shuttle responded by lifting off and heading straight for the smoke.

S'lani was more than willing to let Yari take the helm. There would doubtless be some resistance to their leaving in such a manner, and he was by far the better pilot. She kept an eye on the sensors, half expecting one of the smaller ships to attack.

Their ship zipped through the dark cloud of smoke that had been produced by the explosion and out through the large hole in the hanger door. It was barely enough room for the vessel to pass through. Once clear, Yari headed straight for orbit. "Keep an eye on the sensors, I need to know if we are being followed."

"Nothing so far." She paused, "One ship is heading for the doors, but it's too large to get through the hole. That will give us a little more time." Just in case, she activated weapons. But she sincerely hoped they would not need to use them. The easier they got away, the better.

Yari accelerated the small spacecraft for space. He wanted to get distance from this place as quickly as he could. He was sure that someone would try and follow, he just wanted to make sure that they couldn't be found. Down below, through the smoke and fire, a larger spacecraft activated its forward disruptors, The energy finishing off the broken hanger doors causrf them to explode outwards. The ship gracefully passed through the billowing smoke before heading upward for space.

S'lani had hoped they would have gone farther before a ship came after them, but their luck was not quite that good. "Targeting their engines." She'd have one shot before they got their shields up and fired back. She double-checked the targeting system and fired. A moment later, the phasers hit and the ship dropped to impulse. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it should slow be enough for Yari to jump to warp.

"Nice shooting." Yari said "Now to find out where we are so we can go home. Scanning the star clusters to get our location." He punched in a few commands on his console that activated the warp drive. "It won't get us anywhere fast, but warp 2.5 is better than none." He tapped another command to scan the star cluster to get their location.

"It might be prudent to jump in the wrong direction in case they follow us, then head for home," S'lani suggested.

"There is the way we need to go," Yari said, as he pointed to a location on his monitor. "We will head out at 123 mark 23 for a bit before we change course, then we'll go on our real heading of 151 mark 43."

She nodded and checked the sensors again. "No indication that we are being followed. I'll perform a diagnostic of the computer to make sure there is nothing here they can trace." It was important that the owner of the shuttle not be able to find them, but until now she had more pressing matters. She ran a quick check and found nothing active, so she set up an alert in case anyone tried. "We are clear."

Once they passed out of the planet's atmosphere, Yari fed the first set of coordinates into the computer, "Okay, here goes nothing.." He hit the command to jump to warp, but the small ship stopped in its tracks. "Well, that's not good," he said sarcastically.

"No indeed." S'lani ran a quick diagnostic and sighed.

"There was a program to prevent anyone stealing the shuttle from going to warp. I'll endeavor to get around it." She'd seen something like this before when she worked on a merchant ship. It took her only a moment to recall the information. She couldn't remove the lock, but she could trick it into thinking they were going slower than they actually were and once they jumped to warp, she'd have more time to come up with a better solution.

Right now time was not on their side, and she could ill afford to take the time necessary to do this right. "Try warp one," she said after a few minutes. "If that works, we can drop out somewhere else and take the time we need to remove the lock." She looked at Yari. "Unless you happen to have the proper program on you?"

Yari shook his head, "Sorry, I do not, but let's give this a go, shall we?" He tapped the command in his console to go to warp, but still, nothing happened. The alarms went off on his console, "Someone is locking onto us with weapons." He tapped in a couple of more commands, "There are two ships on our tail. I guess they're mad that we destroyed their door. Any nearby planets that we can hide behind?"

It took S'lani only a moment. "Yes. Entering coordinates now." Just in case, she targeted the two ships.

"Got it, heading there now." Yari said as he received the coordinates on his console. An energy weapon hit the aft shields and rocked the small spacecraft. "Performing evasive maneuvers."

S'lani returned fire, aiming for the weapons first. She had no wish to get away from the slavers to be blown up. The first shot missed, and the second hit the forward shields. She focused on the same spot to punch a hole just large enough to do some damage.

Both of the pursuing ships fired simultaneously, both hitting their targets. The small shuttle rocked hard. Gasses began to vent in the aft compartment as alarms began to sound. "That can't be good, how are the shields holding?" Yari asked. He didn't want to avert his gaze to check for himself, but then another alarm sounded.

The ship approaching from in front of them was the Conundrum. Its forward weapons array firing bright beams of energy nearly blinded Yari as the ship flew by closely, almost rubbing their shields. The attacking ships veered off from each other in an attempt to get in between the Conundrum and the stolen vessel.

S'lani swore under her breath. "Shields are holding, but I do not know if they can withstand the attack of two ships." Time for finesse was over. She needed to take out this ship as quickly as possible if they were going to have a chance of holding off the other one.

The Ex-Breen Commando piloted the Conundrum expertly. He brought the agile ship back around and fired on one of the other ships. Arcs streaked out from the phaser emitters and found their targets, stinging through the shields of the spacecraft. Badly damaged by the onslaught, the slaver ship banked away from the fight as it left a trail of venting deuterium and headed back for the home planet. "Lucy, can you get a transporter lock on our people?" The Breen asked.

"Immediately," Lucy responded, locking on to the two forms on the shuttle.

S'lani didn't need to state the obvious as she and Yari watched the Conundrum appear and fire on one of the two ships. "Dropping shields," she announced, so they could be beamed off the shuttle.

"Do it now!" Aezash ordered and began setting a course away from their present location. The cloaking device was damaged, but he was reasonably sure that none of the ships around could keep up with the Conundrum.

 

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